In container treatment plants, in particular also in plants of the beverages industry used for filling containers with a liquid filling material, for example with drink, it is frequently necessary to provide buffer stores in which containers which are not needed are buffered for example in the event of plant breakdowns. Such buffer stores are required in particular in the kind of plant which exhibits upstream of a filling machine a machine for producing the containers, for example a blower machine for producing the plastic (PET) containers from preforms by blow forming. In the event of breakdowns in the filling machine or in a machine downstream of the filling machine in the plant, it is necessary to buffer the containers (e.g. PET bottles) still being produced by the blower machine in a buffer store to prevent the discarding of surplus containers and in particular also of already preheated preforms.
A disadvantage of known buffer stores is their relatively large space requirement and installation space for sufficient storage capacity (maximum number of containers to be stored). In particular, known buffer stores are also unsuitable for integrated machine parts or plant parts, i.e. for plant parts which exhibit a plurality of machines, for example the blower machine, the filling machine, a sealing machine and a labelling machine, in a tight design and with no additional conveyor belts interconnecting the said machines.
A buffer store for storing bottles (U.S. Pat. No. 5,304,027) is known which consists essentially of a rotor that can be driven to rotate about a horizontal machine axis and on whose periphery is formed a plurality of storing units each extending in the rotor's longitudinal direction and specifically parallel to the machine axis and each having a storing region for receiving a plurality of bottles. The latter are oriented with their bottle axis radially to the machine axis in the respective storage region. The bottles can be moved by conveyor air from a charging position into the storing region of the respective storing unit, along the storing region as well as out of the storing region to a discharge position for discharging out of the store. This known buffer store too has at least the disadvantage of a relatively large space requirement.